Sabathia has desire, skills to pitch Indians to World Series

Sunday

Mar 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 30, 2008 at 6:08 PM

The bling’s the thing. C.C. Sabathia is aware of the impending free agency and humongous contract that awaits him this winter. The reigning Cy Young Award winner insists, however, that his focus this summer will instead be on pitching in a World Series for the first time.

Andy Call

The bling’s the thing.

C.C. Sabathia is aware of the impending free agency and humongous contract that awaits him this winter. The reigning Cy Young Award winner insists, however, that his focus this summer will instead be on pitching in a World Series for the first time.

“I want to try to win a ring,” Sabathia said. “That’s my mindset. I don’t have to turn that (free agency) into a big distraction, a big deal.”

The road to that ring begins this afternoon at 3:05, when Sabathia makes his fifth career Opening Day start against the Chicago White Sox at Progressive Field.

This will be Sabathia’s fifth Opening Day start. Only Bob Feller (seven) and Stan Covaleski (six) have made more among Indians pitchers. Bob Lemon also started five times.

“It means a lot,” Sabathia said. “This is the first time since I’ve been here that we’ve opened up at home and I’ve pitched the first day. It’s going to be huge.”

The Indians signed Sabathia as a 17-year-old in 1998 and he joined the big-league rotation in 2001. He reached the pinnacle of his profession last summer, going 19-7 with a 3.21 ERA and leading the major leagues in innings pitched (241).

“That’s last year,” Sabathia said. “It’s over now.”

Manager Eric Wedge said he doesn’t expect Sabathia to spend the summer of 2008 looking at the shiny silver award on his mantle.

“The last thing he’s going to do is let success go to his head,” Wedge said. “He knows the game is too hard.”

Success didn’t come easily for Sabathia early in his career. He struggled with inconsistency, control of his emotions and pitch selection. He especially struggled on July 25, 2005, the day Sabathia allowed eight runs in 2 1/3 innings of a loss at Oakland.

The Indians flew to Seattle that night. Two days later, Sabathia met with pitching coach Carl Willis and bullpen coach Luis Isaac. It was a meeting that changed the direction of Sabathia’s career.

“It wasn’t confrontational at all,” Sabathia recalled. “We talked about a lot of things that turned out to be really important.”

The most important things from that talk, in a general sense, were that Sabathia needed to master, then mix in, offspeed pitches at different times to keep hitters from waiting on fastballs. Sabathia also needed to develop a more consistent delivery that didn’t give away what was coming.

Sabathia was 4-1 with a 1.45 ERA in six starts that September. In 2006 and 2007, his ERAs were 3.22 and 3.21.

Sabathia says the maturity and lessons learned over the last 2 1/2 seasons will stay with him.

“A lot has to go wrong for me to get back to where I was,” Sabathia said.

The big left-hander is much more of a craftsman these days, keeping hitters off-balance. His changeup is considerably more effective and his control has become impeccable — Sabathia’s strikeouts-to-walks ratio last season (5.65 to 1) was the second-best by any left-hander in baseball history to Arizona’s Randy Johnson in 2004 (6.59 to 1).

The battle Sabathia must continue to fight is internal. He readily admits letting his emotions get the best of him during last year’s American League Championship Series against Boston. He had a 10.45 ERA, walked seven and struck out nine in two starts, both losses.

“I was overdoing it,” Sabathia said. “I was trying to throw pitches 100 mph, something I used to do when I was 21, 22 years old. I shouldn’t be doing it when I’m 26, 27. That’s why I didn’t have success in the postseason.

“When I overthrow, it takes away from my pitches. It gets me out of whack. I thought I was calm out there, but I was way too amped up. I could have run that ball to home plate as fast as I was throwing it. All I can do is learn from that.”

Sabathia has learned lessons, sometimes difficult ones, over his seven years in the big leagues. He hopes to have a chance to apply the lessons he learned last October.

Winning a Cy Young Award and thoughts of impending multimillions won’t decrease his motivation to do so.